The Invisible Counterpoint

It’s bad enough that Michael Dowse’s retro-comedy Take Me Home Tonight isn’t nearly as much fun as the ’80s actually were. Even worse, it’s less fun than most ’80s comedies were — and that’s bad. Topher Grace plays Matt, a recent MIT grad circa 1988, whose life is stuck on “pause”: He’s working a dead-end job at Suncoast Video, and he still has the hots for Tori (Teresa Palmer), the golden goddess who wouldn’t look twice at him in high school and who barely looks once now. She comes into the store one day; he not-so-subtly puts the moves on her, telling her he works for Goldman Sachs (in the old days, this was supposed to drive girls wild). They agree to meet later at a huge Labor Day bash, where Matt will be able to perpetuate his silly lie and, with luck, win the girl. [. . .] I get that Dowse ( Fubar , It’s All Gone Pete Tong ) isn’t just mimicking ’80s comedies; he’s actually trying to make one, trusting, I suppose, that the audience is in on his ultra-ironic joke. The movi...

I'd explained all this. But when I showed up at the group home that morning, he was drinking coffee and pacing and still not dressed. I went into his room, took some clothes from the closet, handed them to him. And hinting at what he was about to do only with a small sigh, as if to say, "I've had enough," my son picked me up and threw me across the room. I had three broken ribs and a bit of damage to my liver that made my doctor fret. Still, who among us hasn't wanted to toss our mother across the room when she's nattering on and making cheerful sounds in the morning? (Ann Bauer, “Monster Inside My Son,” Salon, March 26, 2009) Many people have. I certainly have. Nattering on communicates to the kid that his/her primarily role is to take in/adjust to/tend to parents' moods, rather than his/her own. If you get too much of this, you either go inward and remote (autistic), or you attempt to blow away the oppressive "party." If, as I suspect, ...

I'm far more concerned that our youngest remain playful than if they if they know how to do "practical" things (which sounds vaguely Thatcherite -- didn't she want Brits, owing to the ostensible demands made by contemporary necessities, to stop studying English and the like, and learn how to make things?). For sure, fear might inspire Spartan survivalist vigilance, but it won't do much to inspire Athenian play. Maybe rather than look to Jane Jacobs, who with her depressing and conservative last book showed exactly why she ought to be left behind, we might look at other books to light the way forward. We might, for example, look to 1) Douglas Rushkoff's “Playing the Future,” 'cause he actually can say good things about what kids are doing on the net and with their Xboxs; and for sure to 2) Stanley Greenspan's “Secure Child,” 'cause here he really reminds us what happens to kids when they grow up forever worrying about wolves and scarcity. pa...